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  19/10/2007, 11:21 AM :: Posted by Emma Hagan (Posts 17)

  Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  On 19 October Hazel Blears launched 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'.

  The plan sets out practical ways of bringing Government closer to people, revitalising local democracy, and making local services reflect people’s needs.  It builds existing good work and shows our commitment to go further.

  We are keen to hear your feedback on the actions set out in this plan, not least because this discussion will feed in to how we shape our ongoing cross government programme.  This forum will run until 19th January 2008. 

  We would particularly like your views on:

  Widening and deepening empowerment opportunities locally

  • Which actions (Action Points 1 - 10) do you think are most important to increase empowerment in your community and why?  
  • What other actions do you think would help local people to participate more and have more influence in your community?  (see Action Points: 1 - 10)

  Supporting and enabling people to take up empowerment opportunities

  • What other support would you like national and local government and the third sector to provide to help you take up local empowerment opportunities?  (See Action Points: 11 - 20) 

  
  Strengthening local representative democracy

  • What other ways would you suggest would help to encourage more people to get involved in local democracy?  (See Action Points: 21 - 23)
  • Can you suggest any other ways to increase people's opportunity to be engaged with their local area?
    

  You can find out details of the plan and download the plan itself by following the links below:

  More about 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

  Download 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

  If you would prefer to send us your feedback in an alternative format see this page for further information.

  Thank you in advance for taking part.

  Over to you. 

  Emma Hagan   (Moderator)

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  20/11/2007, 9:40 PM :: Posted by Shann Turnbull (Posts 1)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  The 23 point “Action Plan” is full of good objectives but fails to walk to the talk of enriching democracy as the definition of ‘Community engagement’ denies vesting power with the people on how they are governed.

  Democracy depends on public bodies governing communities having the consent of the community to do so. This requirement has been reversed by the definition on page 12 that states: ‘”Community engagement’ is the process whereby public bodies reach out to communities” so that no consent of the governed is envisaged and any reaching out is at the grace and favour of the public bodies.

  The exercise of power by citizens requires local ownership and control of community assets that can be sustained on a self-financing basis without the grace and favour of higher orders of government. How this can be achieved is set out in my paper on ‘Affordable Housing Policy: Not identifiable by orthodox economic analysis’ posted at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1027864. It describes how to democratise the wealth of cities by making home ownership affordable for all residents.

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  22/11/2007, 10:50 AM :: Posted by Hugh Butcher (Posts 1)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  Responding to the requests for views on:

  Widening and deepening empowerment opportunities locally

  • With respect to Action Points 1-10:  3, 6 (particularly participatory budgeting), and 7 are most important. Why? - 3 and 6 offer the most potential for real decision making power by communities; 7 (citizens juries) offers the possibility of authentic deliberation about policy options
  • What other actions...&c? - see below

  Supporting and enabling people to take up empowerment opportunities

  • With respect to Action points 11-20: 16 and 18

  Strenthening local representative democracy

  • With respect to Action Points 21-23:  23
  • Other ways to increase  people's opportunities to be engaged in their local....&c? - see below

  General Comments

  1. I found much to agree with and support in the Action Plan.
  2. Whilst not surprising (given the Action Plan's origins in 'Communities and Local Government') the main focus is on locality/neighbourhood/area empowerment. Other kinds of communities (based on interest, identity, life-course &c), while not neighbourhood-based per se, often find their most meaningful expression by/for people at the neighbourhood level. (e.g. Senior Citizens, Health Support, Faith, Environmental). I wondered if the empowerment of people active in these kinds of communities was given sufficient weight?
  3. Community Empowerment is defined on p 12, and quite properly mentions 'power'. However, the Action plan seems to lack a recognition of the multiple 'faces' of power - it focuses overwhelmingly on a) 'decision making' power and b) 'power-to' (building people's confidence, skills &c).  I would like to have seen more acknowledgement of: c) power to set agendas (the proposals in the Action Plan are 90% about responding to opportunities to 'engage' with those who have already set the agendas) and d) the power to shape the underlying assumptions (the taken-for-granted 'framing' assumptions, beliefs and values) which prompts the identification of particular kinds of agendas (and ignore others) in the first place. The 'tems of engagement' remain fairly narrow and constrained if empowerment fails to acknowledge - and finds ways to address - these other 'faces' of power. My responses to the 'Action point' questions above have been informed by this understanding of power and empowerment. Power in society is unequally distributed - Action Plans for 'empowerment' need to address this multi-layered understanding of power; thus my prioritisation of things like Participatory Budgeting, Tenant Self Managment &c -  because they expand the scope for setting agendas, for reviewing framing assumptions: and I favour Citizen Juries &c because they too encourage 'deliberative' processes, and offer the potential for rethinking and re-framing of understandings and beliefs, and so forth. 

  Hugh Butcher, 22.11.07

   

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  13/12/2007, 3:16 PM :: Posted by ianj (Posts 6)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  General Comments
  Firstly I have to agree with Shann Turnbull’s post that there is still a paternalistic slant to the position of Communities and Local Government.  The services in communities are the citizen’s services not the states.  Over the centuries public sector has lost sight of the reality that the ownership of the service has to be with the community.  It is not just a case of ‘allowing’ them some empowerment to make them feel actively engaged.  The word ‘Give implies’ a bestowing of an indulgence and not a right.  Some of the actions appear to be structured from the perspective of CLG as a functional deliverer services and not necessarily a facilitator allowing citizens to decide engagement from their own perspectives.   It is a start but there has to be cultural shift to enable real co-production to take place.
  
  We live in a complex system and sometimes when one reads the action plan it is still appears linear and mechanistic. We live in communities of place, need/interest and then there is the community of practice with its professionalisation that separates individuals from their service. Each aspect mentioned is multilayered as well; a community of place can be multilayered with people identifying with a street, a neighbourhood, a town a county a country and the world. This identification can be associated with interests or needs and for different purposes and changes when people interact.  It is not a system that can or should be micro managed. (I have emailed a short paper on ‘Connecting Communities’). CLG has to be aware that its focus on communities of place (neighbourhoods) might restrict and create boundaries in the context of communities of interest and practice thus frustrating citizen involvement.  The Local Area Agreement has to be the mechanism for these boundaries to be challenged.
  
  There has to be an understanding of the nature of complexity and how such systems function.  One has to understand that in order to develop community empowerment one is involved in cultural changes within the dynamics of the system and it has to be from the bottom with support from the top down, not the other way around.  The first thing one has to do is to engage individuals from their own narrative perspectives and not from the structural perspectives of government or service providers.  You have to enable to people to get engaged in their own time and in order for them to progress into the higher levels of empowerment and co-production sometimes small steps are required.  There can be no absolute prescriptive intervention.
  
  One of the first things that needs to be done, particularly for those who are disengaged and under-represented is to support them to be involved in their communities and become active citizens through volunteering.  It seems to me that CLG does not quite appreciate the stages people go through to become active in their community in order to take on more responsibility.  People have to be supported to take these steps and be allowed to develop at their own pace taking on more action as their confidence grows and the system alters. Sometimes it is difficult for those who want well structured planning to understand how to develop active citizens to become engaged as Baroness Neuberger recently said “Government policy, therefore, has been an odd mixture of enthusiasm for the perceived outputs of volunteering, made real by the testimonies of countless individuals and visits to volunteering projects, and distrust, because it does not work along lines that can be understood and controlled.”
  
  Widening and deepening empowerment opportunities locally

  • Which actions (Action Points 1 - 10) do you think are most important to increase empowerment in your community and why?

   I consider the following to be most important;
   2 as it will allow local government and citizens to shape the delivery of services and allow local leaders to challenge regional/national service provision if it is not suit local needs.
   1 the guidance must show not only how services should be citizen focused but how through voluntary action citizens can co-produce services through joint, design, planning and delivery.
   5 is an excellent idea to celebrate Citizen’s Day to show what we can achieve together.
   7 is interesting but you could end up with the ‘usual suspects’ with the loudest voices dominating. Selection would have to be carefully considered.
  
  What other actions do you think would help local people to participate more and have more influence in your community?  (see Action Points: 1 - 10)

  Support the development of individuals in communities take the first step into becoming active citizens then help them advance through voluntary action.  This has to be facilitated at the local level and the ability for individuals to share this practice across communities is also important.
  
  Supporting and enabling people to take up empowerment opportunities

  • What other support would you like national and local government and the third sector to provide to help you take up local empowerment opportunities?  (See Action Points: 11 - 20) 

  Local government (particularly elected members) should have the wisdom to realise that by working with and through the third sector will allow greater involvement of citizens.  This could be arranged so that when citizens become active in volunteering or governance activities the third sector can refer to the democratic process that allows this to happen.  There is a tendency for elected members to believe they are the community when in fact those who are community activist tend not to want to be politicians.
  
  I would recommend making local democracy a ‘political party’ free space.  Political games can get in the way of people working together for the benefit of local communities.
  
  Formally recognise volunteering as a crucial aspect of community development and empowerment and support the expansion of this infrastructure. Community anchor organisations do not necessarily have to be sat in a neighbourhood particularly in rural areas where resources are scarce.  Also neighbourhood community anchors which deliver projects need infrastructure support from larger local third sector organisations (Capacitybuilders partnerships) that cover staff training, volunteer recruitment and development, planning support etc.

  Strengthening local representative democracy

  • What other ways would you suggest would help to encourage more people to get involved in local democracy?  (See Action Points: 21 - 23)

  In order for people to get engaged in representative democracy then need to feel that their involvement is respected and noted.  If people are involved in their community and know that their actions have a direct benefit to where they live then the more likely they are to be involved in the democratic processes.
  
  As above the role of local councillors has to be adjusted so that they work with local third sector organisation in a more proactive way.  I have seen local activities stopped because they did not meet what the local councillor thought was right even though the community through its voluntary organisations wanted it to happen.  There has to be a greater recognition of the role of the third sector by locally elected representatives.  This could be achieved it would certainly benefit them as much work could then be achieved through community organisations through a dynamic interaction of elected representation and grass root activity.

  • Can you suggest any other ways to increase people's opportunity to be engaged with their local area?

  Again referring to the above comments CLG must recognise that volunteering in their local community is paramount.  This voluntary action has to be brokered from the individual’ perspective to suit their needs and interests and not directed by preconceived objectives from outside bodies.   This volunteering can then lead on to all sorts of possibilities including going onto become elected representatives and support the design and delivery of services.  It also allows social capital to be built up for neighbours to offer each other mutual support and encouragement.
  

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  17/12/2007, 1:56 PM :: Posted by Denise Taylor (Posts 1)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  I agree with many of the comments already raised concerning the dynamics of power, and assumptions that appear to be made by Government, and in addition would like to include the steps and intervention necessary to enable communities to best realise such power.

  The type of involvement highlighted within the Action Plan requires specific levels of confidence, knowledge and skills - all of which contribute to ensuring the power not only rests within the community but can be utilised to their own benefit. Interventions need to be on a long-time basis and at different levels and in a variety of ways. Communities shift and change, and the degree of participation will ebb and flow as aspects of personal lives change.

  To ensure the long term development of communties setting out the solid foundations enabling communities to become empowered and to participate requires ongoing qualitative interventions, not soemthign that stops and starts as project funding is reshaped to fit changing agendas. While such intervention will of necessity respond to the local environment, they should be designed and delivered strategically, to the specificaitons and aspirations of those local communtiies, with the quality being of major priority - poor quality development at community level can be more damaging than no intervention at all!

  The Action Plan places significant emphasis on the design and delivery by the public sector to enable and encourage engagement. While such an aspiration is necessary, the knowledge, skills and understanding of those workers within those public sector bodies is important on 2 levels:

  - those identifying and where appropriate commissioning, such work need to understand what is being offered by agencies and how and if it might meet the needs of local communities

  - those who have a role and responsibility to work with and support local communities and their groups require skills, knowledge and expereince that at best is patchy, and at worst minimalist.

  Finally, I would concurr with those who highlight the emphasis placed on the value of empowered communities (but for whose agendas and priorities?) but no apparent understadnign let alone acknowledgment that that takes time and resources, and will not achieve the outputs of rigid agendas.

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  09/01/2008, 6:36 PM :: Posted by Alan Leadbetter (Posts 1)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  Re: Share your views on ‘An action plan for community empowerment: building on success’
  
  Here is my answer to two questions:
  
  Widening and deepening empowerment opportunities locally
  · What other actions do you think would help local people to participate more and have more influence in your community?
  Strengthening local representative democracy
  · Can you suggest any other ways to increase people’s opportunity to engage with their local area?
  
  My answer to both questions is: neighbourhood councils.
  
  When I heard, in 2001, that the government was planning Neighbourhood Renewal, I thought, "Good! And of course this will need a mechanism for each neighbourhood democratically to decide how it wants to be ‘renewed’". But it wasn’t like that.
  
  I believe the government should now make good by implementing neighbourhood councils.
  
  The main functions of a neighbourhood council should be to discuss and decide within the neighbourhood what are the neighbourhood’s wishes, and then either organise the neighbourhood to take its own actions, or present the neighbourhood’s wishes to the outside world.
  
  Neighbourhood councils would in some ways be like, but would differ from, other organisations:
  
  (a)  Ward forums. Neighbourhood councils would be different in that: (i) each would cover a neighbourhood, not a ward (ii); its members would be democratically elected from all the residents of the neighbourhood, on the basis of one citizen one vote; (iii) its meetings would be under the control of neighbourhood councillors, not local authority councillors.
   
  (b)  Residents associations. Neighbourhood councils would be different in that: (i) they would have a duty and the resources to be responsible to all residents of the neighbourhood; (ii) neighbourhood boundaries should be set so that every household will be covered by one neighbourhood council or another.
  
  (c)  Community anchors (see your Action number 18). Neighbourhood councils would be different in that: (i) they would be democratic; (ii) their existence would not depend on people who have particularly strong feelings about this, or that, public service
  
  (d)  Parish councils (which are mentioned in the White Paper on Local Government, but not in your Action plan). Neighbourhood councils would be different insofar as they must be, to suit an urban environment (where, in particular, more thought has to go into choosing borders that is necessary in a rural environment; and where I believe there is a case for having more councillors per thousand of population, and shorter terms of office, than is the case for parish councils now).
  
  Neighbourhood councils will need the government to provide: model rules;  monitoring (so that the neighbourhood council’s democratic reputation is assured); and adequate money for the running of a democracy (for elections, meeting places, newsletters, clerical costs and other expenses)..
  
  I believe the government should be proactive in setting up neighbourhood councils, because it should be the right of every UK citizen - in whatever area - to have a neighbourhood councillor, and a neighbourhood council, to which to turn. And if every part of the country is covered with similar neighbourhood councils, the country as a whole will come to know what they are, and people moving from one area to another will know from the start what is, or should be, available in their new neighbourhood.
  
  Experience of proactively setting up neighbourhood councils in a town was earlier  acquired by Walsall Council, and I believe the government should use that experience.
  
  By the way:
  
  Neighbourhood councils will not only give everyone  a closer experience of democracy than people have now, but will encourage some, having served as a neighbourhood councillor, to think of  becoming a local authority councillor. (See what your paper says about membership of a New Deal for Communities Board, in Case Study 12.)
   
  
  

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  17/01/2008, 4:15 PM :: Posted by Emma Hagan (Posts 17)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  A big thank you to all of you for your feedback so far.

  This is a quick reminder that this forum will close to new comments shortly so please be sure to share your feedback on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success' before Monday 21st January.

  Thanks again

  Emma (moderator)

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  18/01/2008, 11:17 PM :: Posted by Jimmy Devlin (Posts 2)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  When I first read the Action Plan I thought "At long last" real Government support for local democracy and meaningful  input from local people  adequately equipped to drive change  in their communites.

  Then I considered local circumstances:- My (4 Star Excellent  Metropolitan Borough ) Council has yesterday visited Government Office for the region with the draft Local Area Agreement. Despite the borough currently having at least 30 active TRAs ....people  elected by their communities to act as representatives and input their views etc. Not one TRA  was invited to "Consult" on the LAA at any stage!

  Most are still blissfully unaware that the LAA exists as a result of zero capacity building locally.

  We will again receive services ( for the next 3 years) prioritised with no local input except from the strategic partners, including the CVS  which has no mandate to represent tenants and residents  or local  communities!

   This paternalistic approach was supposed to be extinct , but unfortunately for us local residents is still alive and kicking .

  How will the action plan address this situation ?   It won't because officers at my council will continue as before, simply ignoring tenants'  concerns and activists pleas to be listened to. Following LSVT more than 5 years ago, the Council simply washed their hands of the TRAs and as far as they are concerned, we may as well not exist  any more.

   You will notice the excellent 4 star  description at the start of this message , how can we community and tenant activists and representatives believe things will improve when it is still so easy for Local Authorities to receive maximum acclaim even though they don't understand  the real meaning of "Community Empowerment" ?

   And my council is not the only one.

   

   

   

   

   

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  22/01/2008, 1:22 PM :: Posted by Emma Hagan (Posts 17)

  Re: Share your views on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'

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  This forum is now closed.

   

  Thank you all for taking the time to contribute to this discussion forum on 'An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on success'. We value your feedback.

   

  Respondents seem particularly keen that local communities should not just have opportunities to respond to the agenda set by others, but should also be empowered to set their own agenda. Communities and Local Government is committed to making this happen.

   

  For example, on December 27^th we launched a consultation on Local Petitions and Calls for Action. Taking forward action 8 of the Action Plan, the consultation asks for views on a duty on local authorities to respond to petitions, in particular the conditions that would need to be met before a local authority were required to respond including what level of support the petition would need.  You can find more information about the consultation and how to share your views by following this link http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/localgovernment/petitionscalls  

   

  Your comments will now feed into how we shape our ongoing cross government programme.  Please check http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/communityempowerment/ for updates as this work develops.

   

  Thank you again for your valuable contributions.

   

  Emma

   

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